If I Don't, She Will
by Igenlode Wordsmith
Summary: Dr Alan McMichael confronts the prospect of the knife, at the hand of a man he has no reason to trust.


**If I Don't, She Will**

 _(Author's note: in English usage, a baronet's wife bears the title of 'Lady Sharpe', but his sister has no actual right to any courtesy title at all... so one can choose to assume that Lucille is sending a not-so-subtle message about their relationship at the ignorant Yankees' expense :-p)_

He'd come here to rescue Edith. He'd come here to take her away from the husband who was no husband and his sister who was no sister — and hadn't she called herself "Lady Lucille", and openly, mocking American naïvety as the fresh love-marks on her neck mocked at Edith's stolen wedding-ring? He'd come here full of crusading passion to rip down the veils of deception and to bring Edith back into safety and sunlight. And now it came to him instead in blind disbelief that he was going to die.

Blood oozed between his fingers, heavy and dark, where Lucille had sunk her knife into him up to the hilt. Blood, his own blood, mesmerised him on that same approaching blade, caught up from where he had dropped it on the snow. His left arm was numb and the blow had somehow robbed him of all coherent thought, but a small, trained part of his mind told him _axillary vein_ from behind the shock. If he could not stem the bleeding he was going to die, as surely as if the artery itself had been hit... but he was not going to be allowed long enough for that to matter.

He watched his death come towards him. Sir Thomas's eyes were pale and intent in that odd, angular face of his, cheekbones too high and too narrow beneath swept-back dark hair — as great a contrast to his own squared-off fair features as night to day — and his gaze held the same unflinching focus as the blood-stained dagger in his hand. _Fey_ , Alan thought, remembering a word from the old country. The man was fey.

There was nowhere left to run. Alan had spent his strength on the few staggering steps that took him to the door, to thrust it open on the whirling blizzard beyond with Edith's name falling broken from his lips. But there was no escape for her that way, not with a shattered leg set barely half an hour before, and the drifts outside offered no hope for him. It was all he could do to hold his ground and watch Thomas Sharpe approach, and face the other man's eyes in defiance to the last.

"If I don't do it, she will," Sir Thomas said softly, with the pained unreason of a man explaining away the inevitable. "But listen to me—"

Alan had closed his eyes, willing it to be over. There was no point in arguing with insanity. He felt the kiss of the knife, and a grip on his arm, urgent and oddly insistent. When he looked up, the other man's face was very close to his own.

"You're a doctor," Sir Thomas whispered, as if promising a favour. "Show me where."

For a moment Alan could only stare at him, the jolt of comprehension running cold along his spine. It was the coaxing note one would use on a small child: _now, just hold still, and this won't hurt. One quick prick, and it'll all be over in a minute._..

There, that would be the place for it: between the fourth and fifth rib, upwards and a little to the right. Quick and clean without a struggle, if he were to consent...

No. He began to shake his head, mutely, refusing his enemy the comfort of acquiescence; read something else in the pale, strained features that was not swift mercy after all. Or not of that sort.

 _Somewhere that will look good. Somewhere that will make a show of murder, and not kill... I must be mad. As mad as he is, even to be considering this._

But it was a chance. A chance for Edith. Let Lucille believe him dead, and there was a chance, a fragment of hope, that they might all come out of this alive.

If Sir Thomas could be trusted. And every document they had found — and Edith's deadly fall, the scent of alkali in the tea — bore witness that he could not. Only it seemed that the man she had married carried Edith's name in his eyes and in his heart, even as Alan himself did, and that instant of knowledge tugged across the gulf between them.

~o~

As if from a great distance Alan saw his own bloodied fingers guide the knife-point across the map of his waistcoat. It halted above the watch-fob.

 _Twelfth rib,_ he thought. Away from the lungs. Away from the viscera. He ran through the major arteries in his mind, and counted them all safe, more or less. One could take a thrust in the liver and survive, with reasonable luck... but the anticipation of it was the hardest thing he had ever done.

He set his jaw. He'd give up his life for Edith in a heartbeat, wouldn't he, if he thought it would do any good? The answer came back an unswerving Yes, and steadied him a little. If he could do that, he could do this.

An eternity seemed to have passed, but it could only have been a few seconds. Somewhere out of sight in the hall, the little dog was choking out its last whimpers beneath unmerciful fingers, and he could hear Edith's quick, sobbing breath.

He searched the other's expression one last time, swiftly up and down. This close, he could see his opponent's chest heaving as fast as his own; they both knew this was going to have to look convincing, and as ruthless as all hell. Alan did not suppose there would be much difficulty over that. It was going to hurt him like the blazes when it came.

The wound beneath his arm throbbed, a reminder that time was short, and he drew a long breath. Whichever way it turned out, what was about to be done was going to drive Edith half-wild with grief. But that could not be helped.

He read the onset of the blow in the other man's face in the instant before he struck, and held steady, waiting. Staking life and everything he cared for on a threadbare ribbon of trust, and the honour of Sir Thomas Sharpe... such as might remain.


End file.
